Category: My stories

Aziz

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I watched as a kid named Aziz celebrated in the schoolyard, the teacher leading his classmates in praise for Aziz’s brother.
He’d blown himself up, killing twenty people. Four of them were from my unit.
I followed Aziz home. Two men gave him a package, and he put it in his schoolbag.
I stopped him, took the bag away, and looked in the package.
It was a bomb. He was going to deliver it to another of his brothers to go blow himself up.
Instead, Aziz exploded in his house, taking his whole family with him.
Accidents can be caused.

Moment

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“Let me know when you have a moment,” said the boss.
His idea of a moment is not my idea of a moment.
A moment to me is a flash of recognition in the street, or sipping coffee that’s just a little too hot.
His idea of a moment is forty minutes at the end of the day, delaying my commute home until traffic’s at its worst.
It could be worse. I hear that the secret police of many nations tap people on the shoulder and say “Do you have a moment?” all the time.
Those people tend to vanish.

Mouse Trap

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Everybody’s trying to build a better mousetrap.
Me, I’m trying to build a worse mousetrap.
You can waste your time with engineering and materials science and physics and such, but after playing that old kids’ game, I just want to make a mess and a whole lot of noise.
Who cares if it traps a mouse or not, right? Half the fun is getting there.
And mom always said that you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
Speaking of which, what else do you want with your omelet besides shredded mouse?
Yeah, I thought you’d want cheese.

Supercuts

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Many years ago, Mom would take me to the barber shop for a haircut and the barber would put the apron on me, but I’d turn it around like a cape and run around the barbershop, pretending I was Superman, yelling LOOK AT ME I CAN FLY over and over again.
The barber would try to catch me, but I was too fast for him, and I’d run outside and into traffic and people would slam on their brakes to avoid running me over, and they’d rear-end each other and…
Oh, man. Good times.
I wish I was twenty-eight again.

Mr. Tambourine Man

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Hey, Mister Tambourine Man?
Get the hell out of here! Now!
No, really. Quit banging that tambourine and beat it.
You’re driving everyone nuts with that racket.
Oh, and maybe you should take a shower, too. I mean, you reek like landfill.
Then, when you’re clean, how about some music lessons?
Look, a guitar or a piano is a musical instrument. It takes skill to use.
On the other hand, a tambourine takes no skill whatsoever to use. You just smack it around and make noise.
Understand?
Good. Now put that tambourine in the trash and get out of here.

Crown Of Newspapers

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We put the crown of newspapers on the bum and call him our king.
He is no less confused now than before his coronation.
Commands flow from his ragged mouth like filth from a smokestack, catching the wind and joining the clouds.
The Regicide leaps up and smashes the king with a hammer.
The bloodsoaked crown falls into a puddle and goes limp.
Three days later, it is a grey waterlogged mass.
But that’s okay, we can make another. And find ourselves another king.
We will destroy him, too. Over and over.
Until kings, rulers of men, are no more.

Perpetually Dying

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My friend, far away.
Perpetually dying, a tired wall of sickness spreading and suffering, each day worse than the last.
No hope but for the next moment.
In time, the end comes to us all, but we live by denying it.
Until it approaches.
Or comes suddenly.
But her, every day, growing worse, she lives in defiance of it.
For her son.
He is young, but he sees not the crippling pain, closing in on itself, but someone staying strong.
For him.
Hold on just a little longer.
And when he’s strong enough, your gift to him, you can rest.

Haircut

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The amazing haircut machine made barbers obsolete.
All you had to do was stick your head in a box, and the computer-scanners would figure out the perfect haircut for you.
Five seconds with a series of lasers, and you were done.
Okay, so there were a few glitches in the system’s development, but those prisoners were too dangerous to have their hair cut by any other means.
No matter how well you chain them up or incapacitate them, putting a prisoner in close proximity with someone wielding a sharp object is a very bad idea.
A little off the top?

Anonymous

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I prefer to think of myself as famously anonymous.
The bigger I get, the less people recognize me on the street.
I barely recognize myself in the mirror. When I go to brush my teeth or comb my hair, for just a moment, I wonder how a stranger got past my bodyguard.
I don’t even look like my ID anymore. Not even my shadow recognizes me. It still follows, but not quite as confidently as before.
Maybe my fingerprints have changed, too? My DNA?
If I’m going to commit this crime, I’d better do it before I change my mind.

Stop The Presses

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Stop the presses!
Stop the elevators, too!
Might as well stop the air conditioning.
Oh, and the copiers. Can’t forget them, too.
Have you got a coffee machine?
Yup. Stop that sucker cold.
Stop everything right now.
Okay, now listen. Listen for a minute.
What do you hear?
You hear yourself breathing. And maybe your heart beating. Are your ears ringing, too?
That’s what’s real.
Now turn everything on.
Flip switches, one by one.
Bring it all back to life.
Make some noise.
Yell. Scream. Shout.
Just because you can’t hear your heart beating, it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.